Parents want lots of things for their kids.

But when they call me, there is astounding similarity in what they want. Parents arrive, hope in hand. They sit on my couch and describe children of different ages, issues, gender, and problem settings. Yet every parent wants the same thing. Improbable, but true. How can this be?

CONNECT

Parents yearn for their young children to connect better — with them at home, and with others outside the home. They pray for smoother interactions between their child and other kids, between their child and other adults. They wish their child could …

Get through a play date without a knock down/drag out, friend-goes-home-early;

Feel brave enough to say hello on the playground;

Handle teacher correction without feeling she’s “mean;”

Be able to tell a teacher what one feels and needs;

Have as many loving moments at home as challenging ones;

Enjoy mutually satisfying parent-child interactions.

COPE

What else do they want? Without exception, every parent who comes to my office wants “coping skills for my child.”After many years, I noticed this word mentioned in EVERY intake — not just many or most. Parents yearn for their child to acquire skills that can be remembered, applied and activated in troubling times. For their children to learn to handle a situation without aggression, withdrawal, meltdown, a freak out, or “bad choices.”

THRIVE

My new patient paperwork concludes with this question:

“Say you run into someone six months from now, someone who knows your family well but hasn’t seen you in a while. Somehow, things have gotten better. What would you like to be able to say?”

In the hopeful answers to this question, the same word keeps cropping up: THRIVE. “He is just thriving” or “She’s thriving now in every way …” Parents want their child to feel success, joy, light, achievement and resilient self-esteem – to thrive on every level of development.

So, parents want their children to connect and cope better, so ultimately they can thrive. Over my 20 years as a child psychologist, I see those aspirations as intertwined. But perhaps not as you’d expect.

With preschool & primary graders,

child coping is a joint venture between adult & child.

They learn and practice these skills with YOU

and apply them in the world.

Wait … don’t kids learn to cope in the therapy room?

They learn it in every room. Young children are developing their “coping systems” – a complex blend of neurological, physiological and emotional and social mechanisms for reacting and responding to challenge. Part temperament and genetics, part modeling, part impulse control, part emotional regulation. A tall order for the young ones I see. Very hard to do alone. We adults actually help or hinder children’s coping through our interactions with them.

To help children connect, cope & thrive,

I teach adults to facilitate their child’s coping

through brain-building interactions styles.

At some point in the process of child therapy most parents mention to me, “It kind of seems like you’re training us …”Down the road, many parents also share a common disclosure, admitting somewhat sheepishly but with deep pride: “I noticed he really started to change when I started to change. I had no idea ….”

For instance, parents learn why yelling never works. We think the louder we yell, the more kids will remember the lesson next time. Right? Wrong. Yelling activates the threat center in the limbic system in the brain, taking blood and oxygen away from the thinking cortex. Yelling literally incapacitates the child’s cortex from problem solving. Thinking goes off line. Good coping doesn’t get rolling like that.

You can learn to help your child Connect, Cope & Thrive via child therapy or a parent workshop. Or, you try to apply these few concepts and see if things improve:

Child coping starts at home in every interaction you share.

Your own calm coping is the best model for your child’s coping.

If your child’s “upset elevator” goes up, keep yours down.

Promote your child’s coping through calm connection that models the cool you want them to achieve. Remember, you are building his or her brain in these early years. Parents are the most important part of child therapy.

Dr. Beth is Clinical Child Psychologist for preschoolers & primary grade children ages 3-8. These are her reflections upon children from the course of a clinical day. Her aim is to help parents, teachers, caregivers & pediatric professionals interpret child needs and respond with solutions. Dr. Onufrak conducts evaluations and therapy and presents Parent Workshops & Seminars. These blog entries provide general suggestions only. Customized clinical advice can be found within a treatment relationship with a mental health professional.